- M
[M 词源字典] - 13th letter, from Greek mu, from Semitic mem. The Roman symbol for 1,000; sometimes used in this sense in English 15c.-16c.; but in late 20c. newspaper headlines it stands for million. As a thickness of type, from 1680s.[M etymology, M origin, 英语词源]
- ma[ma 词源字典]
- 1823, childish or colloquial shortening of mamma.[ma etymology, ma origin, 英语词源]
- mesh (n.)[mesh 词源字典]
- late 14c., mesche, "open space in a net," probably from late Old English max "net," earlier mæscre, from Proto-Germanic *mask- (cognates: Old Norse möskvi, Danish maske, Swedish maska, Old Saxon masca, Middle Dutch maessce, Dutch maas "mesh," Old High German masca, German Masche "mesh"), from PIE root *mezg- "to knit, plait, twist" (cognates: Lithuanian mezgu "to knit," mazgas "knot").[mesh etymology, mesh origin, 英语词源]
- mosasaurus (n.)
- marine dinosaur, 1830, from Latin Mosa "the river Meuse" + -saurus. the fossils of the ancient reptile were first discovered 1780 near Maastricht, on the Meuse.
- muskellunge (n.)
- "large North American pike," 1789, from Algonquian (Ojibwa) maashkinoozhe; the second element kinoozhe "pike;" the first either mac "great," maazh- "similar to," or maazh- "ugly." Altered by French folk etymology as masque allongé "long mask." Called muskie for short (1894).
- Mabel[Mabel 词源字典]
- fem. proper name, shortening of Amabel. Enjoyed its greatest popularity as a given name for girl babies in U.S. from c. 1884-1895.[Mabel etymology, Mabel origin, 英语词源]
- Mabel[Mabel 词源字典]
- fem. proper name, shortening of Amabel. Enjoyed its greatest popularity as a given name for girl babies in U.S. from c. 1884-1895.[Mabel etymology, Mabel origin, 英语词源]
- Mac[Mac 词源字典]
- casual, generic term of address for a man, 1928, from Irish and Gaelic mac, a common element in Scottish and Irish names (literally "son of;" see Mac-); hence used generally from early 19c. for "a Celtic Irishman."[Mac etymology, Mac origin, 英语词源]
- macabre[macabre 词源字典]
- macabre: [15] Macabre is now used generally for ‘ghastly’, but that is a late 19th-century development. It originated in the very specific phrase dance macabre, which denoted a dance in which a figure representing death enticed people to dance with him until they dropped down dead. This was borrowed from French danse macabre, which was probably an alteration of an earlier danse Macabé. This in turn was a translation of medieval Latin chorea Machabaeorum ‘dance of the Maccabees’, which is thought originally to have referred to a stylized representation of the slaughter of the Maccabees (a Jewish dynasty of biblical times) in a medieval miracle play.
[macabre etymology, macabre origin, 英语词源] - macabre (adj.)
- early 15c., originally in reference to a kind of morality show or allegorical representation of death and his victims, from Old French (danse) Macabré "(dance) of Death" (1376), of uncertain origin, probably a translation of Medieval Latin (Chorea) Machabæorum, literally "dance of the Maccabees" (leaders of the Jewish revolt against Syro-Hellenes; see Maccabees). The association with the dance of death seems to be from vivid descriptions of the martyrdom of the Maccabees in the Apocryphal books. The abstracted sense of "gruesome" is first attested 1842 in French, 1889 in English.
The typical form which the allegory takes is that of a series of pictures, sculptured or painted, in which Death appears, either as a dancing skeleton or as a shrunken corpse wrapped in grave-clothes to persons representing every age and condition of life, and leads them all in a dance to the grave. ["Encyclopaedia Britannica," 11th ed., 1911]
- Macaca[Macaca 词源字典]
- monkey genus, Modern Latin, from Portuguese macaca, fem. of macaco, a name from an African language of the Congo.[Macaca etymology, Macaca origin, 英语词源]
- macaque (n.)
- East Indian monkey, 1757, from French macaque, from Portuguese macaco "monkey," a Bantu word brought from Africa to Brazil (where it was applied 17c. to a type of monkey there). Introduced as a genus name 1840.
- macadam (n.)[macadam 词源字典]
- 1824, named for inventor, Scottish civil engineer John L. McAdam (1756-1836), who developed a method of leveling roads and paving them with gravel and outlined the process in his pamphlet "Remarks on the Present System of Road-Making" (1822). Originally the word meant road material consisting of a solid mass of stones of nearly uniform size laid down in layers (McAdam did not approve of the use of binding materials or rollers). The idea of mixing tar with the gravel began 1880s.[macadam etymology, macadam origin, 英语词源]
- macadamize (v.)[macadamize 词源字典]
- 1825 (implied in macadamized), from macadam + -ize. In early use also mcadamize. Related: Macadamizing. Also macadamise, macadamised.[macadamize etymology, macadamize origin, 英语词源]